Anticlimax
by KarotsaMused
Summary: A fight viewed spurs a conversation about love. It ends like a normal day. Burial-era Hakkai and Gojyo, sometime after Boiling Point.


A/N: Disclaimer: Saiyuki is sole property of Minekura; I'm using the characters without permission and for no profit. 

Hello, lovies, I thought I'd kick off my catharsis-break with a bit of oneshottyness. It bit me on Valentine's Day and hasn't gone away, so I figured a bit of useless Burial-era discharge would be good for everybody. Or at least me.

I hadn't heard the song in months, and then it came on the art room stereo. "Wind Cries Mary" is, quite easily, one of my favorite songs. I know Jamie's version is a cover, but I'll credit the song to Jamie Cullum anyhow because the original artist has completely slipped my mind. I am a lyric thief. Radiohead's "High and Dry" makes an appearance, too. Thanks, Jamie.

Warnings: Language 'n' spoilers and a lot of symbolic ties to "Boiling Point". It's not mandatory to read it, but if you want to recognize themes you might want to go have a look.

* * *

_A broom is merrily sweeping  
Up the broken pieces of yesterday's life  
Somewhere, a queen is weeping  
Somewhere a king has no wife_

* * *

_All your insides fall to pieces  
And you just sit there wishing you could  
Still make love_

* * *

She is, in a word, striking. Strikingly blonde, strikingly beautiful, and in the process of repeatedly striking her companion over the head with her pocketbook. Her words are lost, but her repeated gestures across the street are telling enough.

There is hurt in her lovely eyes, throwing her brows up and wrinkling her forehead as her entire face strained against tears, against the words in her mouth. As she berates her companion, her form hunches with the force of her feeling, curving like a bow under pressure and throwing her arms backward. Her pretty hands are curled into fists over the pocketbook used as a weapon. The brunt of all of this grows indignant, righteous, annoyed at his treatment and comes back at her with mouth open and eyes blazing. His words, too, are lost in the background hum of Life Goes On. And across the street, watching and not watching, detached with a certain sort of pain, she stands. Her beauty is softer, darker, more compliant. She blends in much better than the others.

The shouting match escalates to tears and pacing, the couple advancing and retreating, moving just to move because standing still could never get the point across. She cries but never stops talking. Nor does he give pause to her outpouring of frustration. Words, words, words with fingers pointed, fists reared, feet moving away and toward, the rest of the world forgotten even as earlier phrases echo back into the fray.

As they begin to draw a crowd, exhaustion sets in. Their voices lower, their hackles settle back, their hands unclench into supplicating gestures from breast to arm's length. Real talking, no negotiation, hiccupping and an offering of a handkerchief. They walk away together but not next to one another, heading only in the same direction by some apparent matter of chance and circumstance. Their audience disperses, but one stays behind, riveted and standing across the street, watching with dark eyes and then looking away.

Her bare shoulder brushes against cool fabric and she does not look up when an apology is offered. Hakkai finishes the statement anyway without even so much as lowering his voice. Respect is not a shameful thing, and it deserves the best of his oration. When he hears a door slam behind him, he lets out his breath and leans against the support beam of the roof above his head. A few moments later, the door swings open and shut with a much more leisurely air.

Goyjo, reeking of cigarettes and money, brandishes a hefty handful of bills in Hakkai's face. "Check me out," he boasts, pocketing the cash. Hakkai smiles, and Gojyo beames with all his teeth. "You should of come in," Gojyo continues, hitching his pants up a bit. "Folks were asking after you. Seems everybody loves gettin' their ass whooped at poker s'long as it's you."

At this, Hakkai chuckles. "I'm sure. I'm sorry I wasn't there to augment your formidable winnings, Gojyo, but I was detained."

Gojyo cocks his head to the side. "Rubbernecking?"

Hakkai's smile does not disappear, but he does begin to walk away in the direction tentatively labeled 'homeward'. "So you heard them?"

"So you were watching?" Gojyo asks, easily matching Hakkai's stride. He grabs for Hakkai's wrist and checks the man's watch for show. "Slow down, speed demon, the night's hardly started," he comments.

Gently enough, Hakkai pulls his wrist back. "I wasn't watching, no, but it certainly was a spectacle to behold."

"The shouting reached inside," Gojyo agrees, nodding. "Sounded like a hell of a row."

Hakkai smiles a bit. "It really was. The sort of fight that will determine the course of their relations from now on. If, of course, they survive it."

Gojyo grins. "Kinda sounds like you want 'em to. Sap." He nudges Hakkai with his elbow and laughs.

"The idea that there can be a perfect relationship, a person's soul-partner, was a delusion I labored under for far too long," Hakkai murmurs in response. "I only hope that, if his mistake is forgivable, she will give him his due. Neither of us knows the whole story; we can only make guesses off of our better judgement."

Gojyo puts his hands behind his head. "Hn. Then give me your guesses. I didn't hear a thing inside, only that there were raised voices." He walks even slower, strolling in measured, rhythmic steps so that Hakkai must follow his lead if he wants to maintain conversation.

Hakkai presses his hands together as if in prayer. "Must I?"

"I can start'cha if you want," Gojyo murmurs conversationally, his voice sly. "You were watching, so tell me. Were they in love?"

Hakkai laughs at that, his eyes closing. "Do you believe in love, Gojyo?"

Gojyo spits over his shoulder, lowering his hands in a defeated motion. "Don't you?"

"Nice word choice. Do you mean to imply that you do and hope I am in the same boat? Or," Hakkai continues with an upward glance at Gojyo, eyes glinting, "do you really assume I'm a sap?"

In response, Gojyo holds up his hand with the fifth finger extended. "You never made it sound like a delusion to labor under."

Hakkai puts his hand over Gojyo's. "Put that away."

And so Gojyo does, shoving his hands into his pockets and pacing next to Hakkai. Tracking verbal circles while trudging down the same paths homeward as they had taken every other time gets tiring, and Gojyo is in too good of a mood to be shot down. He bides his time, waiting for the eventual crumble.

"Maybe they were," Hakkai muses, looking straight ahead at the road and not at the redhead by his side. "Maybe they've found one another out of the sea of the masses, and maybe what they have is something a million people hope for and only two will ever get. And if that is true, they will survive this. Because this wasn't a big enough mistake, so far as I know, to really destroy them. She will remember and be wary for a while, but she believes in forgiveness. And he learns from his mistakes and nurses the bump on his head. Maybe it's a happily ever after. But, Gojyo, if today wasn't the big one, then it's still coming."

Gojyo looks down at Hakkai, eyes searching for something but unable to catch more than the fall of his hair and the line of his jaw. Hakkai's posture is comfortable, his steps measured, his voice easy. The words continue, soft and melodic.

"No amount of fighting can prepare them. But fighting is so good." Hakkai sighs. "Fighting is forcibly reminding someone how much they matter to you."

Gojyo clears his throat. The sound resonates in the darkness, alighting rustles in nearby bushes and disturbing the peace. "Did you…ever fight with her?"

When Hakkai turns to look at him, the expression on his face is plastic and frightening. Immediately Gojyo backtracks, holding up his hands. "Got it. Fuck off, Gojyo. Never mind."

"No, no," Hakkai murmurs, his features relaxing. "No, I was just…Honestly, we didn't. Not over anything really important, anyway. We got along quite well, always making very similar decisions and understanding one another's motives. We hardly ever fought, or raised our voices to one another."

Gojyo hears the tone in Hakkai's voice and dislikes it instantly. He tries another vein. "Well - and you can always stop me but – the sex was good, right?"

Hakkai nearly stops walking. His pace falters enough that Gojyo turns to him, looking for some root he may have tripped over, a questioning call for reassurance slipping from his mouth. Hakkai resumes the pace easily enough, still walking as if nothing had happened. "We treated it differently than you do, Gojyo."

The redhead laughs wryly, a short bark of sound that echoes through the trees. "No doubt. Some people take it literally, making love. Like that's what you _need_ for it. To _make_ love. I don't make love; just have sex. I figure you didn't need it either, not really. But…how did you ever get the passion out?"

Hakkai murmurs wordlessly, questioningly. Gojyo shrugs although his companion is not looking for the gesture and explains, "I know you loved her. You've told me enough. Something like that's gotta be so big you just want to scream it. You know? But…the whole…thing with you two. That's hush-hush material. Right? I'm not sayin' it's wrong, but PDA's are kinda out of the question. So how'd you deal with something _that _big?" Before Hakkai can speak, Gojyo blurts out, "I don't mean how you let her know. I figure she knew well enough. But havin' something inside of you like that is…is…heavy. Like an elephant in the corner or something, the thing you want to talk about but can't or won't and words aren't enough. If you aren't fighting her or fucking her, how'd you manage?"

Hakkai is silent for a very long time, walking and thinking. About Kanan and how she always understood, with or without words. About sweeping the walk and washing the dishes and talking to her being more important than sex. About being scared of sex. About Gojyo, and how he thinks fighting is healthy. About Gojyo, and how he treats sex. About Gojyo, and how he treats him.

Hakkai jumps when a lanky arm settles over his shoulder. Gojyo gives him an easy grin, saying, "It's okay; I prolly don't want to know all the sordid details anyway. 'S what I get for askin' a kid raised by _nuns_ about passion."

"Are you implying I'm not possessed of any?" asks Hakkai, teasing.

Gojyo shakes him a bit, laughing. "Nah, more like you got fucked up ways of showing it."

Hakkai raises an eyebrow. "Now, there's the pot calling the kettle black." Gojyo grins and nudges him, and Hakkai nudges back. They walk on like that for a while, trading easier talk of Gojyo's gambling and the growing grocery list, and whether or not Gojyo's winnings could handle Goku dropping by.

Slowly, with cold pinpricks on bare skin, it begins to rain. Gojyo holds out a hand and grunts, catching drops in his palm. Hakkai does not so much shrug Gojyo off as let his arm fall away from him. He opens the front door, lets Gojyo inside, offers to cook. Gojyo declines, citing a previous meal, and plops down on the bed, pretending to fall asleep to save them both a pathetic conversation.

Hakkai does not cook, but stares out into the rain. Remembering, hit by waves of nostalgia, and wishing despite the redhead's actions that Gojyo had not learned to respect him.


End file.
